


Fine Again

by Skyshadow3246, Wolfloner



Series: Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alien Technology, Canon-Typical Violence, Cold, Dom Loki (Marvel), FrostIron - Freeform, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Light Dom/sub, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, M/M, Magic, Masturbation, Mild Painplay, Panic Attacks, Safeword Use, Self-Esteem Issues, Sub Tony Stark, Tagging is time consuming, Temperature Play, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark/Loki (Marvel) - Freeform, Trust Issues, emphasis on Frost, i guess?, mild PTSD, tagging is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 18:23:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14836850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyshadow3246/pseuds/Skyshadow3246, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfloner/pseuds/Wolfloner
Summary: This was the sort of mission that should have been stupidly simple. It shouldn’t have needed anyone but him, but at Steve’s insistence, they went together. Strength in numbers and all that. A couple of idiot college students had found some pieces of alien tech and decided they were their new toys. What wasn’t supposed to happen was the alien tech having a strong enough EMP to neutralize Tony’s suit long enough for him to hit the ground from 50 feet up. The damn thing also wasn’t supposed to be able to shoot magic bullshit ice beams and traumatize Steve.





	Fine Again

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if I'll be able to keep up a pace like this, but I'm gonna try, damn it!
> 
> As always, if I forgot to tag something, please let me know!

_And I am aware now_  
_Of how everything's gonna be fine_  
_One day too late, I'm in hell_  
_I am prepared now_  
_Seems everyone's gonna be fine_  
_One day too late, just as well_  
\- Seether, _Fine Again_

 

This was the sort of mission that should have been stupidly simple. It shouldn’t have needed anyone but him, but at Steve’s insistence, they went together. Strength in numbers and all that. A couple of idiot college students had found some pieces of alien tech and decided they were their new toys. What wasn’t supposed to happen was the alien tech having a strong enough EMP to neutralize Tony’s suit long enough for him to hit the ground from 50 feet up. The damn thing also wasn’t supposed to be able to shoot magic bullshit ice beams and traumatize Steve. Although Tony was sure Steve would be fine, the look on his face when he’d been hit in the chest with frozen water might just haunt his dreams for a few weeks. 

 

Bucky, who was absolutely not cleared for any sort of combat, had shown up and taken out one of the devices. Honestly, Tony was just glad he was still in civilian clothing--having the Winter Soldier show up on the streets of New York would have taken this PR nightmare into a veritable hell. 

 

It took the suit a full 120 seconds to power back up, something he would definitely have to work on as soon as possible, and in that time Loki had appeared. At least Tony could figure out how he’d gotten there so fast, being able to teleport and all. Loki insisted it wasn’t something as pedestrian as teleportation, but fuck it. He disappeared in one spot, showed up in another, that was teleportation, as far as Tony was concerned. (At least until Loki let him study it and start to quantify it, then he  _ might _ re-evaluate his terminology.) 

 

Before Tony could do more than stand back up, Loki had been hit by something--the ice beam, he’d realized later-- and in the next moment both humans were flat on their backs, tech destroyed, with a furious Frost Giant looming over them.

 

“Loki!” Tony called out, catching his attention. “It’s done. Good guys won. Get the fuck out of here.” He flew over to hover a few feet away from Loki and the kids. Bright red eyes turned to face him for a moment, before Loki vanished. Hopefully, Tony thought, back to the Tower.

 

***

 

Cleanup hadn’t been bad. The remnants of the tech were taken away by some shady looking agents, the kids were taken off to be questioned, and Bucky was able to get Steve back to the Tower before the reporters and news crews had descended. Despite the pain from having fallen, Tony had no issues with the PR side of things. Sure, he fudged the details a little bit, no need for the panic that the knowledge of Loki’s and Bucky’s involvement would cause, after all. 

 

But he was quite proud to say that he’d managed to return home, remove the suit, and even make it to his bedroom before he had collapsed in a heap on his bed, clad only in his boxers. Everything hurt, and despite what his eyes had told him, he was  _ certain _ that he was just a giant walking bruise. Also...why was his room so cold? “JARVIS, would you be a dear and bump up the thermostat by like 5 degrees?”

 

“I request that you belay that order, JARVIS.” Tony glanced up with confusion in the direction he’d heard Loki’s voice come from. Loki was sitting at the desk, obviously trying very hard to look as if nothing was amiss. It might have even worked if his skin hadn’t been a deep shade of blue.

 

“Um.” Tony started, trying to figure out what to ask first. “Are you ok?”

 

“I’m not the one who fell. Are you injured?”

 

Tony sat up, laying on his bed wasn’t going to be helpful if he needed to try to convince Loki to talk about something he didn’t want to talk about. “I hurt, but I’m not injured. No broken bones, and Bucky’s pretty sure I don’t even have a concussion.” From his position on the bed, Tony could see raised designs on Loki’s skin. Scars, maybe? They looked intentional, very carefully spaced, and he followed the lines along his throat down the neck of his shirt and felt a strong urge to  _ touch _ . “Your turn,” he swallowed.

 

Loki was frowning at him, and wasn’t actually meeting his gaze. “I wasn’t harmed.”

 

Tony waited a moment for him to continue. When nothing else was forthcoming, Tony pressed, “Are you sure?”

 

Loki let out a long breath through his nose. “I was hit by…” he waved his hand in the air, searching for the word, “a spell, I presume. It cracked my glamour.” He paused. “As I said, I was not harmed.”

 

Tony was confused. “So...the way you usually look, then… that’s a glamour?” He was pretty sure Loki had called it shapeshifting before.  _ Of course _ he only had part of the story. Naturally.

 

“Yes.”

 

“But you’re less sensitive to the heat that way?”

 

“Correct.”

 

At least Loki was answering his questions. “Are you ok with the temperature right now? We can turn it down more.”

 

He didn’t smile, but at least Loki stopped frowning. “The temperatures I would require for proper comfort would leave you quite miserable, Stark.” Tony opened his mouth to argue, but Loki held a hand up, “I’m fine like this. As you know, I’m quite durable.”

 

It was Tony’s turn to frown. “Do you need to like...I don’t know, go back to Asgard, or--” Loki’s mirthless laugh cut him off.

 

“Oh yes, of course, I’m certain Asgard would welcome me with open arms like this. Just Prince Loki, back from his banishment--not likely.” Something squeezed at Tony’s chest. “They wouldn’t even notice who I am, Stark. All they’ll see is  _ what  _ I am: the monster they’ve been warned about since they were children. A Jötunn there to slaughter every man, woman, and child.” 

 

“You’re  _ not _ , though.” Tony interjected, staring down at his hands, his fingernails digging into his thighs. “You’re not a monster. What kind of bullshit--”

 

Suddenly Loki was in front of him, had grabbed his right hand, and it pulled it towards him. “Spare me. Don’t try to ply with me meaningless trivialities, and try claiming you don’t see a monster, when you can’t even  _ look _ at me.”

 

Loki’s hand was so cold it  _ burned _ , and when Tony’s head snapped up, he was barely a dozen inches away from those decidedly inhuman bright red eyes. Some small prehistoric section of Tony’s brain screamed at him to  _ run _ because he was obviously in danger, but a much louder section seemed to decide this was one of the hottest things he’d ever seen. 

 

Loki’s eyes narrowed, “Are you  _ hard,  _ Stark?” Tony couldn’t tell from his tone of voice if he was offended by it or not. It seemed like a reasonable thing to be offended by, he decided.

 

“Sorry. I really figured I’d be past the “inappropriate boner” stage of development by now, but--”

 

“Shut up.” Loki leaned down, capturing Tony’s mouth in his. And  _ that _ was  _ weird _ . Loki’s lips and tongue were freezing, and Tony had a brief moment where he wondered if it were possible for him to get stuck. But he had wanted to touch, and now he had the opportunity, so he took it. He fisted one hand in Loki’s hair and was amazed by how soft it was. Silky was the closest word he could think of right then, but it didn’t do it justice. How could hair even be this soft? He gasped as Loki moved, pressing his lips against the pulse-point in his throat. The implied danger of the moment was exhilarating. 

 

Loki, for his part, seemed amused. Tony could feel him smiling against his throat. Done being distracted by Loki’s hair, for the moment at least, Tony carefully reached up and traced one of the raised marks along Loki’s cheek. 

 

He muffled his hiss of pain by biting into Tony’s shoulder, and Tony let out an undignified yelp. His mind was filled by  _ coldsharpteethdangerblood _ .

 

“You startled me,” Loki accused, pulling away, licking a stray drop of blood from his lip.

 

“So you fucking  _ bite _ me?” Tony glanced over at his shoulder. Despite the pain, the bite didn’t look like it was actually all that bad. 

 

“I don’t think you actually mind.” Loki was smirking as he reached between Tony’s legs and cupped the bulge he found there. “I think you would be perfectly ok with me doing whatever I wanted to like this. 

 

Rather than argue, Tony intended to meet the challenge. He reached up and gently cupped Loki’s face, earning him another hiss of pain. “What…” realization dawned on him. “Loki, is touching me  _ hurting _ you?”

 

“Am  _ I  _ hurting you?” Loki countered.

 

And ok, yeah, that was fair. Tony’s dick had definitely shifted to the wrong side of “too cold” as Loki held it, and he couldn’t quite suppress a shiver that had nothing to do with his arousal. “Ok.” He made a shooing motion at Loki, “Hands off, for a moment, then.” Loki did as he was asked, standing back up and quietly gazing down at the human. Tony took a deep breath. They were a couple of geniuses, surely they could figure something out. There was no way in hell Tony planned to let this opportunity slip past them, either. In the right circumstances, both of them had managed to get off on pain, so surely…

 

“We don’t actually have to do anything, Stark,” Loki said gently. “It should only take me a few hours to fix my glamour and then we can--”

 

“Fuck that.” Tony waved his hand, dismissing the idea. “Aside from whatever weird kink I have going on that we just discovered, I want to have sex, at least once, with  _ you _ .”

 

From the look on Loki’s face, Tony was pretty sure they were about to start arguing again. But frustration shifted to confliction. “I am a Jötunn. Regardless of what I look like, you’re always having sex with  _ me.  _ Besides, aside from my infancy, this is the longest I’ve ever held this form _. _ ” 

 

Tony huffed and threw himself down on his back. He was momentarily confused by the rush of pain the action caused, before remembering that, oh yeah, he’d fallen 5 stories an hour ago. He didn’t think he’d made any noise, but Loki still looked concerned.

 

“Fine. I have an idea.” He walked over and perched on the side of the bed. “Roll over.” Tony arched an eyebrow but moved to obey. The pillowed his head over crossed arms, and stretched the rest of him as far as he could. He heard Loki chuckle. “Arms at your side, Stark.”

 

Tony didn’t immediately move, instead he looked over at Loki. “Why? What happened to no more surprising each other?”

 

Loki lightly patted his shoulder. “No surprises. You’re in pain. I want to help. I’m only going to touch you with my hands.” Once Tony shifted his arms down to his sides, Loki started gently pressing his hands against his inflamed joints. “And although I disagree with your assessment of who I am, I do... appreciate the sentiment.” 

 

Tony chose not to be bothered by the warm bubble of pleasure he felt at Loki thanking him so genuinely. 

 

Several minutes passed in relative silence, only interrupted by their shared breathing. Tony wasn’t sure if it was some sort of magic on Loki’s part, or if he had just started adapting to the temperature, but the cold didn’t seem so oppressive, and it was hard not to relax into the strange cold massage he was receiving.

 

“Tony.”

 

“Hrm?” Tony was pulled out of his reverie by Loki’s soft voice. 

 

“Roll over,  _ Ulfr _ .”

 

Tony rolled over and fixed Loki with a confused look. “What did you just call me?”

 

Loki smirked at him. “I would have you touch yourself.”

 

Tony stared, “how is you watching me masturbate us fucking?”

 

“I’ve given it some thought, and I don’t foresee a way that either my fingers or my cock could be inside you without causing us both a fair amount of pain.” Tony frowned at him. Admittedly, he had gotten distracted and forgotten to be thinking about this predicament. Loki cut off any complains he might have had, though, “I never said I wasn’t going to be an active participant.” Loki ran his fingers over Tony’s stomach, and flashed his teeth at Tony’s sharp inhale.

 

“You gonna jerk off, too? Or at least take your clothes off?”

 

Loki hummed. “No, I don’t think so.” He reached down and ghosted his fingertips over Tony’s hip bone.

 

Tony didn’t need to be told a third time, and made quick work of removing his boxers and tossing them off to the side. He had half-turned towards the nightstand to grab their lube, when Loki grabbed his wrist again, although much gentler this time. “You aren’t going to need that,” Loki purred before licking wide stripes up Tony’s hand.

 

Tony was always perfectly happy to argue all of the reasons spit made for terrible lube, and how no self-respecting person over the age of 15 would think that spit was “good enough”. But right at that moment, his arguments fell away, because he had a god in his bed, who had just commanded him to touch himself, and who had told him in no uncertain terms that his freezing cold saliva was definitely “good enough”. Tony grabbed himself to stave off whatever bizarre religious experience he had been on the cusp of. He didn’t know what sort of face he’d made, but two bright red eyes were shining at him in amusement, and Loki was laughing.

 

“Close your eyes?” Loki suggested. Tony shut his eyes immediately, and after a moment Loki started gently stroking different parts of his body. His knee, his shoulder--he took a moment to press in hard at the bite mark there and Tony hoped he enjoyed his gasp of  _ pleasurepain _ at that--his navel, and once even the inside of his elbow. 

 

He couldn’t predict what Loki was going to do next, and even surprised himself as his shout when Loki pinched one of his nipples. He’d never considered his nipples all that sensitive before, but he was re-evaluating all sorts of things about himself right then, so that was fine. After a moment he recognized that Loki was gently tapping on the palm of his free hand, and he did his best to time his stroking with it.

 

Tony was openly panting, keeping his eyes clenched shut, and just  _ feeling _ . He could feel pressure building, knew he was close, just a bit more and--

 

And then Loki tapped two fingernails against his ribcage, just to the left of his heart. And that was fine. Mildly threatening, but  _ fine _ . Loki wasn’t going to hurt him. Then Loki’s fingers inched closer towards the Reactor, and Tony’s hand froze. Loki  _ wasn’t  _ going to hurt him. Even if he did touch the Reactor, he knew it could withstand cold temperatures. He was fine. This was fine. Definitely fine. Loki’s finger was less than an inch away from the plugged hole in his chest. It was fine. Loki knew better than to touch a piece of metal that was sitting inside his chest cavity. God knows what  _ that _ would even do to him. It would probably kill him, actually. Even if the Reactor itself would be fine, his lungs and heart wouldn’t be able to handle that level of cold and holy shit he was about to die.

 

“RED!” Tony’s eyes flew open and he threw himself towards the other side of the bed, away from Loki. He wasn’t followed, and when he looked back Loki sat there looking stunned. Shit. He was being an idiot. He wasn’t going to die. But he was shaking, and his chest hurt, and he couldn’t quite breathe, and suddenly the room felt unbearably cold. He drew in a long shuddering breath. When had he started crying. Fuck. 

 

“I apologize.” Loki was still perched on the side of the bed, looking torn, looking as if every deep-seated fear he had about himself had been confirmed. “I would never have-- I would never endanger you.”

 

Of course he wouldn’t. Tony knew that. He did! If Loki had wanted him hurt, or dead, he’d had plenty of chances that didn’t involve gaining Tony’s trust first. Tony placed his palm over his Arc Reactor, trying to remind himself that he was  _ fine _ . He made himself look back up at Loki, who’s alien eyes were full of something Tony couldn’t place. “I’m sorry.” He reached out towards Loki with an unsteady hand, only for Loki to jump to his feet.

 

“No. I am. Forgive me.” And Loki was gone. 

 

Tony stared at the space that Loki had vacated. “JARVIS, can I have those 5 degrees now?”

 

“Of course, Sir.” The room instantly felt warmer, less suffocating. Tony pulled the covers over himself, trying to stop the shaking that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.

 

* * *

 

It was 45 minutes before Tony felt the bed dip beside him, announcing Loki’s return. He pulled his head out from under the covers and was met with green eyes and pale skin. “Thought you said it’d take a few hours?” his voice was hoarse, but he didn’t bother trying to clear his throat.

 

“I rushed.” Loki admitted. “I didn’t want to leave you like that, but,” he held out a tentative hand, and when Tony didn’t pull away, let it fall gently on the blankets covering his shoulder. “I couldn’t touch you like that. You were terrified of me, and--”

 

“Not you.” Tony corrected. “I mean...I was terrified. I panicked. But I wasn’t terrified of you.”

 

Loki arched a brow, which Tony interpreted as, “I don’t believe you, but I’m not going to fight you on it right now, either.” “Are you feeling better, now?”

 

Tony considered the question, wanting to answer as honestly as possible, “I had a good cry, I hyperventilated a bit, I think more of me hurts now than it did after I fell… but yeah, I feel better. The walls aren’t closing in, and I can breathe properly again.” When Loki didn’t move any closer, Tony reached out and pulled him down next to him. If it weren’t for the blankets and clothing, they would have been chest to chest. “I’m glad you came back.”

 

“Of course,  _ Ulfr _ .” Loki reached up and ran his fingers through Tony’s hair.

 

“Ulfor? You said that before. What’s it mean?”

 

“ _ Ulfr _ ,” Loki corrected. “It means wolf.”

 

Tony shifted his head back to get a better look at Loki’s face. “Do you think you’re being clever?”

 

“I’m always being clever.”

 

“Why wolf?”

 

Loki pulled his head back down. “That’s a story for another time.”

 

Tony grumbled but didn’t argue. He felt perfectly content curled up against the now properly-temperatured god. He had nearly drifted off to sleep when a thought struck him. 

 

“You said you were only  _ less _ sensitive to heat like this, right?”

**Author's Note:**

> I swear a happy ending is in the works, all.
> 
> If you have a moment to leave a comment, that'd be great!
> 
>  
> 
> You can follow me on tumblr, [@Haarii-the-quilava](https://haarii-the-quilava.tumblr.com/) if that’s your thing! :D


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